So you know you want to introduce automation but don’t know where to start?

You could go down the traditional route and automate each module. But what if it is an existing product with hundreds of modules already in place? It would take a looooong time (and cost) before you have caught up and when mentioning this to the stakeholders it could be called off before you even started.

A year ago I was in charge of getting automation up and running in such a project and instead of automating each module we tried a slightly different approach by automating bug fixes first. Similar to the traditional way the coverage at first is low but when testing bugs they tend to be around the most problematic areas of the code.

Additionally you could also already start by covering the most critical areas of the product e.g. registration or payment. This would make sure that at least the integral parts of you product are covered which would also reduce the pressure during regression testing. And as time goes by and you have created a solid automated base you could start looking into a more module based approach. But as a starting point this could be a good way to introduce automation with quick results.